Published 4 issues per year
ISSN Print: 1093-3611
ISSN Online: 1940-4360
Indexed in
PLASMA STERILIZATION TECHNOLOGIES AND PROCESSES
ABSTRACT
According to an estimation of the French Health Ministry dating back to 1994, every year in France, about 1.5% of the population entering the hospital for medical care (i.e. ~ 10,000 persons/year) are subjected to infectious agents bringing them to a fatal issue. This number is more or less the same as the number per year of victims on the roads. It shows how crucial the needs are for efficient sterilization technologies of any object, which may be put in personal contact with the patients. The objects concerned can be of very different types, including for instance walls and floors as well as surgical instruments or material. Most hospital materials today are sterilized in autoclaves by means of high temperature water vapor treatment. However, this technology clearly cannot satisfy all needs and requirements, neither in the hospitals nor in the peripheral industries. However different types of plasmas can claim to find a status amongst the sterilization technologies. Some of them, among the thermal plasmas and plasmas out of equilibrium (non-thermal plasmas), at atmospheric or lower pressure in both cases, have already revealed attractive potentialities and some equipment is already appearing on the market. Our aim will be, on the basis of the literature already available, to formulate a survey of currently existing sterilization technologies and with the present time knowledge concerning the main plasma/microorganisms interaction processes on which are lying these different technologies.